Trump’s Border Wall Funding Order Finds Almost No Funding

JM Ashby
Written by JM Ashby

Trump cannot begin construction of his fantasy border wall without the necessary funding so, given that Congress is notoriously slow to act, Trump signed an executive order instructing the Department of Homeland Security to identity existing funds to begin planning and construction.

According to a new report from Reuters, the department was only able to identify $20 million in funding that could be redirected.



At this rate, the department may be able to redirect enough funding at some point in the next 1,000 years.

Given the vast distance a southern border wall would cover, and the immense amount of private property and unique landmarks and geography covering that distance, I personally find it hard to believe $20 million would even be enough to design a prototype.

This is a pristine example of Republican fiscal fantasy meeting reality. They apparently believe there are vast sums of money that could easily be redirected within various federal departments, but many departments have already been squeezed by Congress over the past decade.

Republicans often say there's tremendous waste in government but, if that's the case, they're largely responsible for it. Congressional Republicans aren't even attempting to go through the appropriations process this year and that process would allow them to retool the budgets of virtually every federal agency. Congress has not at least partially completed the appropriations process since 2015.

The federal budget has more or less been frozen in time since sequestration. There's no waste or untapped billions that could be redirected for Trump's vanity projects.

  • swift_4

    You know where they could easily find the funding for the wall? Military budget. I think they’re still spending billions and billions to build tanks no one wants and dropping them in the desert in Arizona to (not) rot.

    Hey! That gives me an idea.

  • Badgerite

    Why don’t they hold a telethon. It’ll be a “beautiful telethon” with nothing but “A-list” celebrities. “Very classy”. Michael Jackson will perform. “I’ve heard good things about him and more and more the work he does it being recognized.”

  • muselet

    Donald Trump believes he can simply order subordinates to make something happen and, hey presto!, it happens, just like it did when he was pretending to be a real estate developer. No messing about with budgets or contracts, no design phase, none of that boring stuff, just straight to the photo op with the gold shovel.

    No wonder Trump’s buildings all look like they were designed by an unimaginative child.

    And now he wants to bring that same disregard for objective reality to a huge, useless project (walls don’t work—ask the Chinese) he promised the marks … erm, his voters.



    • And the Romano-Britons, Byzantines…

  • crowtrobot12

    Hahahahahahahaha! Trump is a full RETARD

  • Aynwrong

    Why do I get the feeling that this is more or less what Trump always had in mind?

    • Because that scene makes about as much as sense.

  • Username1016

    LOL! I’m visualizing that scene in This is Spinal Tap, where they sketched out their desired stage set — Stonehenge! — except they inadvertently jotted 12″ instead of 12′ next to it… and that’s exactly what they got. Bring on the itsy-bitsy teeny-weeny border wall!

    • ninjaf

      I imagine this.

    • Toolymegapoopoo

      Maybe they should build the world’s longest tripwire.